Make efficiency a habit

Habits are what we repeatedly do, consciously or compulsively. When they occur with increased frequency, it shows a behaviour pattern. Habits are stronger than reason and reconcile to everything with the exception of change. They are deeply embedded in our psyche. We hardly realise that they possess us in all our choices: eating, drinking, gambling, playing, dressing, working, performing and most importantly thinking.

Strong habits lead to obsessive-compulsive behaviours which degenerate into disorder, for instance, not honouring commitments made before returning phone calls, submitting home grocery bills in reimbursements claimed from company for actual expenses incurred for entertaining clients at home, using company stationery for personal use, procrastination, etc.

One of the reasons for higher result orientation in the private sector, is because of its habits of efficient work, discipline, and accountability. Enlightened management provides an environment conducive to higher productivity and facilities for continuous learning. The aim of training and development activity is to influence employees to become self-introspective, resourceful independent, thinkers, responsible enough to undertake a conscious programme of self-change. This basically involves showing methods and providing tools for changing unproductive and unhealthy habits into proactive and positive thinking habits that change action orientation.

The 80/20 principle

The whole atmosphere echoes the culture of measured performance, and commitment to better results, year after year. Effective leaders apply the 80/20 principle. It has become their second nature. The Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto originally enunciated the 80/20 principle in 1897. He found a pattern in the distribution of wealth and income, i.e. a small minority earned disapproportionately higher than the large majority of the total. This principle became applicable to other activities of the society as well.

Later, Joseph Moses Juran christened it the Rule of the Vital Few in his famous The Quality Control Handbook (1988). He successfully applied the concept to eliminate quality faults by focussing on the vital few causes, which raised the quality consciousness of Japanese managers and workers. His unique contribution led to the faster growth of Japan during 1957-1989 period. It became self-evident that 80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of the causes. The distinction between the Vital Few and the Trivial Many became abundantly clear.

Richard Koch, former consultant with Boston Consulting group, wrote in The 80/20 Principle (2002), “To become effective or happy, realise the importance of just a few people or things. If you concentrate on the few things that work best for you, you can get what you want.”

Intel’s Andy Grove said, “No matter where you work, you are not an employee. You are in business with one employer—yourself—and in competition with millions of similar businesses worldwide. Nobody owes you a career, you own it as sole proprietor. And the key to survival is to learn to add more value.” This means, one must apply the 80/20 principle, as the effective sole proprietor does, to the chain of activities from resources to results.

There are no shortcuts to value creation, except artful husbanding of one’s personal resources, i.e. You & Co, your skills and attitudes, your intelligence, emotional, and spiritual quotients—IQ, EQ, and SQ. Together they make one resourceful. Concentrate on the vital few to make a significant difference. The focus and efforts have to shift to opportunities. A creative leader spots opportunities when he finds gaps in asset utilisation. The leader moves forward to provide the missing link, uplifting the skill levels and group synergy, spiced with his presence and motivating communication. The 80/20 rule is being gradually applied to all other industries. The asset utilisation is being fine-tuned to the principle, “Less is More”.

Flair for observation

The other important attribute in improving effectiveness, is a keen sense of observation. One does not learn everything in one’s academic career. Management education is driven by volume consideration, not value. Science and engineering graduates do not have much liking for arts and literature, which results in stunted growth. And the demand for thought leaders with integral knowledge is on the increase; supply woefully short.

This reality forces management to undertake intensive in-company training in different aspects of art, like listening, learning, thinking and time management. One has to develop a flair for as many attributes in this basket as possible. There are the scaffoldings on which one’s leadership competencies like empathy, self-awareness, confidence, social awareness, relationship management, etc, are built. EQ is measured against this set of competencies, which primes good feeling in those one leads, and frees the best in people to flower.

Excerpt from ‘Exemplary CEOs: Insights on Organisational Transformation’ by Srinivas Pandit. Reproduced with permission © 2005, Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited